Seize the last days of this exhibition and make an appointment to see Gazing at Sanxingdui: Archaeological Discoveries in Sichuan. The last day of the exhibition is January 8, 2024.

The Sanxingdui was a civilization that existed during China’s Bronze Age in what is now Chengdu, Sichuan in China.  According to the Palace Museum, “the exhibition features 120 remarkable bronze, jade, gold, and ceramic objects dating back some 2,600 to 4,500 years. Nearly half the objects on view come from the latest archaeological excavations at Sanxingdui from 2020 to 2022; they will be shown for the first time in a major exhibition outside of Sichuan.”

And the Palace Museum has well-delivered on the above statement. The Sanxingdui exhibition was engaging, educational and eye-opening, to say the least. Before I delve into my learning about the exhibition, I will first discuss some preliminaries.

Preliminaries

The Sanxingdui exhibition is a special exhibition at the Palace Museum. All the special exhibitions are at Exhibition Hall 8. When you make your appointment (and it is necessary to book in advance), you must select the Special Exhibition and pay extra. The fee for the Sanxingdui exhibition is $150 standard. It costs $75 for concession tickets (children aged 6-11, students and 60+ seniors). Children below 6 years old do not have to pay.

The special exhibition ticket will enable you also the entry into the remaining halls of exhibitions at the Palace Museum. I highly recommend seeing also the exhibits from the Forbidden City in Halls 1 and 2.

When you arrive at the Palace Museum, perhaps you can inquire about the guided tours at the ticket office. We ran into a tour group at the museum and the guide gave some additional information that gave a much better context to the exhibits than the captions themselves.

Allow for about one hour to tour the Sanxingdui exhibition.

The Story of Sanxingdui

In Chinese, the words “sanxing dui” means “three stars mound.” The Sanxingdui civilization was originally named Guanghan Civilization, owing to the archaeological tradition that the civilization is named after the name of the place where the discoveries were made. The Chengdu Plain, where these discoveries were found, was known as Guanghan.

Eventually, the name “Sanxingdui” was used. It came from the remnants of the three manmade mounds that might have been part of the rammed-earth ancient city walls. Northeast of these mounds, across the Mamu River, there is another earthen structure that is shaped like the crescent moon and known as the Yueliangwan Terrance. This setting was particularly fitting for the Chinese phrase “threes stars accompanying the moon,” and so the name Sanxingdui became known since the 1980s.

A Tour of Gazing at Sanxingdui: Archaeological Discoveries in Sichuan

The Masks

The most significant finding at the archaeological sites was probably the masks that were discovered, made of different kinds of materials, such as bronze and gold. The gold mask seize all attention at the exhibition, as it truly is lavish.

These masks were believed to serve ritualistic and religions purposes. They were worn by the shamans during sacrificial rites.

Sculpted Human Heads

The human head sculptures show some consistent features. For example, the eyes are bulging and wide, with very pronounced noses and thick wide lips. They show braided hair, which would have been a realistic portrayal of the hairstyle worn by these people. They wear an enigmatic smile, and no two facial expressions are exactly the same.

The Dragon Totem

I got a free ride of the guided tour group that was touring at the same time. I heard explanations of the dragon totem. The Sanxingdui civilization also revered the mythic creature of the dragon. However, the dragon images in the Sanxingdui artefacts are remarkably different from the dragon imageries of the civilizations that are considered “traditional Chinese,” referring to the peoples that developed the Huaxia civilization in the Central Plains of China.

Bronze Vessels

Besides differences in artistic expressions, there are also some differences in the way that the Sanxingdui civilization handled the making of instruments. The bronze vessels demonstrate how the bronze instruments were made with different techniques. In the Huaxia civilization of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the bronze urns and vessels were made by casting molten bronze in a mould. The Sanxingdui civilization engaged in welding to seal the separate pieces of the bronze instrument together instead.

Sun Worship

Photo: A Prehistoric Artefact that Had the Uncanny Resemblance to a Modern-Day Steering Wheel

The Chengdu Plain is believed to be a relatively cloudy region and the discovery of sun-shaped and eye-shaped artefacts evidence the practice of sun worship by the Sanxingdui civilization. According to the caption, “the center and outer rim have small holes that were used for attachment purposes. The archaeological context of the object indicates that it was smashed and burned before being placed in the pit.”

One cultural practice that remains a mystery is the fact that the ceremonial and ritualistic objects were found smashed, and sometimes burned, before being buried in an orderly manner into the pits. It also remains unclear whether the common pagan practice of sacrificing animals was part of the ritualistic rites of the Sanxingdui people. There is no mentioning of discovering animal and human remains in this exhibition.

Some Thoughts

The images are at once prehistoric and futuristic, and as such the key learning from this exhibition is rather the visual appreciation of the artistic expressions of these artefacts, and not so much the stories or explanations behind. Little remains known about the civilization itself, and less explanation is available about its material and spiritual practices.

And to say the least, the visual power of these exhibits is incredible, as the images lure viewers to all kinds of imagination: could these prehistoric people have been inspired by supernatural beings in making these artefacts? They could very well have been the manifestation of other-worldly creatures.

The fact that the Sanxingdui civilization is discovered within China seems to justify the fact that this is a “Chinese” civilization. The idea that the Sanxingdui people are descendants of the mythic Yan Emperor seems to be the unquestioned framework of interpretation of these artefacts. There is always an unexplainable instinct for Chinese scholars to claim something as its own and then places the interpretation within the comparison with the Huaxia civilization. However, after gazing at the exhibits for an hour, my father and I both reached the conclusion that the Sanxingdui people are simply foreign to what we consider the Chinese of the “Central Plain,” who practiced the Zhongyuan culture. The cultures that chiefly influenced the Sanxingdui people may have been the ancient Indians or even as far as ancient Egypt.

The journey of discovering Sanxingdui began in a peasant’s home. The owner of a village house discovered a large number of jade instruments in his own yard. From the first discoveries of the Sanxingdui artefacts in 1920 till now, a century has passed and excavations are continuing at the Chengdu Plain. The recent discoveries being shown in this exhibition came from 6 discovered pits.  That would indicate a century’s worth of efforts to uncover the treasures of Sanxingdui.

Sources

Descriptions and captions on site at the Exhibition.